Colors
by fiercesunshine
Summary: White is the absence of all color. Black is every color put together. If that’s really true, then black can’t be so bad, can it? Lexaeus/Zexion, if you squint.


White is the absence of all color. Black is every color put together. If that's really true, then black can't be so bad, can it? Lexaeus/Zexion, if you squint.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything, except for maybe a cat, but that's pretty iffy.

* * *

Zexion had been woken up at three in the morning because his nose was itchy.

It was more than itchy; it was _burning_, burning with the scent of something new… but not new. Something forgotten, perhaps, from his old life, yet another reminder of how he had no heart – he couldn't even associate the scent's familiarity to an emotion when memory failed. If he had a heart, then he would have been scared – perhaps this non-existence was growing worse if his memories were fading, too.

Or maybe it was just the fact that he was in Castle Oblivion, testing the new headquarters for practicality, and the castle had a strange way of playing with your head. He didn't like it here; as the 'Cloaked Schemer', Zexion was used to being the manipulator, not the manipulated. He was out of his element in a place that seemed to have a life of its own, _illusions_ stronger than his own.

His thoughts faded quickly, however, as the slate-haired man sneezed.

Swearing, Zexion stood, his sensitive nose tingling; he wouldn't be able to sleep until he figured out what this strange scent was. Stalking through the eerie white halls, he paused outside of a barely used room, holding his nose. Whatever it was definitely originated from here, and he wasn't about to walk away to try and sleep, not with the way his nose was reacting to this strange smell. Opening the door, Zexion raised an eyebrow, releasing his nose and looking at the strange sight before him.

"Lexaeus? When did you start _painting_?" Embarrassed, the much larger man shifted uncomfortably, his brush still on the canvas.

"Naminé draws; it reminded me of this."

Closing his eyes for a brief moment, Zexion looked a bit closer. Open cans of paint in almost every color surrounded his friend, brushes balanced across the tops of each can. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple… it reminded him of days that he had tried to forget, to ease the pain of nothingness into just that: nothing. Colors didn't belong in Castle Oblivion or in the Castle That Never Was. Everything there was a silvery white, like the Dusks and other lesser Nobodies they ruled over. What was Lexaeus doing?

"Could I see it?"

Frowning, Lexaeus gave a hesitant nod, standing up and backing away as the considerably smaller man approached the canvas. "Here."

Zexion wasn't expecting what he saw. He saw evidence of color; here and there a bit would shine through, or mingle on the edges of the canvas. The rest of the painting, however, was black. As black as the robes he now wore. As black as the darkness that had made them what they were. Turning to look at Lexaeus, he opened his mouth – only to see that Lexaeus was looking at the floor.

"I wanted color again. To try and feel something. But all I got was darkness."

"Lex…" Moving to the brunet's side, Zexion placed a hand on his arm, his gaze drifting back to the painting. Neither of them moved, neither of them said anything. They just continued to stare, Zexion at the mass of black paint, Lexaeus at the floor.

It was Zexion who broke the silence. "I don't know much about art, Lexaeus. But I once read that in the art world, white is the absence of all color, while black is the presence of all color." Lexaeus looked over at him, confused. "We live surrounded by white – by the absence of color. This castle had no color save ourselves, the cards, and the illusions of worlds that we create. But your painting? It has every color, and everything those colors represent. It is something, Lexaeus, and we have very little of that – for us, everything is nothing."

Moving, Zexion carefully wrapped his arm around the 'Silent Hero', surprised both at how large the man was and how he didn't seem to mind. "Maybe black isn't so bad after all."

The two Nobodies went back to bed soon after, covering the paint and cleaning the brushes. Zexion took the painting, a hint of a smile coming over his normally cold face as he examined it. It was only after bidding his old friend good night that he realized that his nose no longer burned and that he stared at Lexaeus' closed door for far too long.

He shouldn't have been surprised, however. After all, they had finally found something in the midst of nothing, even if neither of them had expected it.


End file.
